Multicasting of a network packet or frame is sometimes performed by configuring a network processor to make as many copies of the frame as may be required for the multicasting and queues up the frames for output. The frames traversing the switch just behind the multicast frame typically must wait until all multicast frames have cleared through the network processor until they can be queued up for output. It would be better if the other traffic could be interspersed with the multicast traffic through an efficient mechanism. In addition, network environments have increasing requirements for complexity in making copies for the multicasting. In particular, it is important for network switches to be able to generate “copies” that are not exact duplicates of the original frame, to allow for network and destination requirements of networks (e.g. virtual private networks and destination specific requirements for multicasting).